Category: INTERVIEWS

In the March 2017 issue of LOCUS, there’s a long feature interview with yours truly, in which I discuss my origins as an editor, editing my first anthologies, launching Lightspeed and John Joseph Adams Books, and all manner of things. (Surprisingly, I somehow got through the whole thing without once mentioning death metal.) If you’d like to check it out, you’ll need to buy the issue, but they’ve got some extended excerpts up on their website. To investigate either option, visit locusmag.com.

Anton Strout interviewed me for episode 78 of The Once & Future Podcast, which he describes thusly:

Wherein I talk with award winning editor/anthologistJohn Joseph Adamsabout a deep love of the post-apocalyptic, how we’d be the first ones dead, military fantasy,BREAKING ANTHOLOGY NEWS FROM SAGA PRESS,the neuroses of authors, Viking and folk metal, his Geek’s Guide to the Galaxypodcast, and the 743 anthologies he has releasing this year.

Myke Cole, Weston Ochse, and I discuss OPERATION ARCANA on the latest episode of The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Fantasy books are full of epic battles like the Battle of Helm’s Deep fromLord of the Rings. And for most fans just reading about such battles is enough, but some fans go further, enlisting in the military in order to live out real-life adventures. One of them isWeston Ochse, a thirty-year military vet who still works with the military, traveling regularly to warzones in countries like Afghanistan. He traces his yearning for adventure back to readingThe Hobbitas a child.

“That desire was definitely inculcated by the idea that one lone hobbit can make a difference,” Ochse says in Episode 143 of theGeek’s Guide to the Galaxypodcast. “And if one lone hobbit can make a difference, then this poor guy from Tennessee can make a difference too. So absolutely it was inspirational.”

Read the article and/or listen to the whole episode over at Wired.com. [read | listen]

I was a guest, along with OPERATION ARCANA contributors Tanya Huff, Myke Cole, Weston Ochse, and Linda Nagata, on the Baen Free Radio Hour podcast. We discuss the anthology and the subgenre of military fantasy. [listen]

What do you especially enjoy about editing anthologies, and what kinds of special problems do anthologies present (i.e. choosing stories, contacting authors, winnowing, etc.)?

JJA:When I’m doing a reprint anthology like Wastelands 2, I enjoy being a curator, and it’s a responsibility I take very seriously. When you read one of my anthologies, I want it to be clear that much more went into it than just slapping the first X number of stories I found between two covers; when I do a reprint volume, I really try to search far and wide, and cast as wide a net as possible to ensure that I included all of the best material on the given topic that is available. I read everything you so you don’t have to; “Trust me,” I say, “I’ve conducted an extensive survey of the field, and these are all the stories on this particular theme that you need to read.”

About John

John Joseph Adams is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the bestselling editor of more than two dozen anthologies, such as Wastelands and The Living Dead. He is also the editor and publisher of the magazines Nightmare and the Hugo Award-winning Lightspeed, and is a producer for WIRED’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.